Keeping up with the keyboard: How Bobble is taking over every teen's smartphone

(Thinkstock Image has been used for representational purposes only)"Bro, do you even bobble?"

If you have heard this phrase and have no idea what it means, welcome to the club. Chances are that you facing the ideal postmillennial crisis which involves struggling to keep up with the myriad ever-emerging apps and acronyms that are constantly taking the world by storm.

And well, if you're not part of the postmillennial bracket and still find yourself scratching your head over this one, never fear- Brand Equity has you covered.

Simply put, Bobble, is a wildly popular keyboard app from India which aims to democratise real-time creation of personalised content on smartphones. With over 8 million installs on Play Store, the app is currently on the list of top 150 most engaging apps globally.

We caught up with Mohammed Wassem, co-founder, Bobble who explained that this growth is purely organic considering most of the app's users come through word of mouth or product virality.

The story of Bobble's branding is interesting. Data says that 90% of the users use emojis in 70% of their conversations. Considering the nature of the product, they identified the target audience and conducted various campaigns on ground level as well as on social media to make the splash they wanted. "We engaged students from colleges and schools. Over and above that, a major chunk of our branding and marketing happens organically, which is done by simply seeding the brand online" explains Wassem.

According to statistics provided by Bobble themselves, 90% of users are in the range of 13-29 years of age. Arguably, the hardest demographic to capture considering the collective attention deficiency it harbours.

Bobble, however, encountered a different set of problems. "Initially we struggled with a few challenges (with getting brands on board), but Bobble is now quite visible and brands themselves have started approaching us. However, one of the major challenges that we are facing, is the market’s standard operating procedures, because of which, newer models have to work hard to create new norms."

While the app is building its advertising infrastructure at the backend, presently it is not a source of income. The app is focussed on experimenting predominantly with in-content branding and working towards monetizing inventory. "In all likelihood, we would be profitable in the next 2 years" affirms Wassem.

Going forward, Wassem wants to take Bobble to new heights. "Our target for the next fiscal is to take daily active users, to more than 10 million and we are strongly positioned to attain that number. We have partnered with the top OEMs to make Bobble Keyboard as a default feature in their handsets and are working with top content creators in the country to bring their stickers and GIFs on our keyboard. You will soon see our keyboard integrated in their apps as well."